


all the good clichés

by kuro49



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Kindergarten & Pre-school, Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 08:21:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5620006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Mako's defense, she was well beyond tipsy and inching towards blackout drunk at that point.</p>
<p>But that was still Chuck’s dad in a thong the pattern of the Australian flag.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all the good clichés

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Belle86](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belle86/gifts).



> tbh this is as much strikerbelle’s fic as it is mine. All the good ideas were hers, and I just did the loud yelling until I found the words to slap it all into this.
> 
> based on the prompt: [a “i’m a single dad but i also strip at night to pay the bills & ur my kid’s kindergarden teacher & oh shit i just showed up to strip at ur friend’s bachelorette party please don’t think i’m a bad dad” plot](http://stephanieofrp.tumblr.com/post/132922526732/a-im-a-single-dad-but-i-also-strip-at-night-to)

 

Much like Vegas, Mako had a general rule: What happened at Sasha’s house stayed at Sasha’s house. And with this being Sasha’s bachlorette party, it was probably best for everyone involved that she wouldn’t remember a damn thing come morning.

After all, she was in a pink crop top embellished by tacky pink rhinestones that spelled out _Slut of Honour_ across her chest. This was probably not shaping up to be the finest moment she could be caught dead center of.

But Sasha (to be) Kaidonovsky was the best friend that Mako Mori slammed back hard liquor and deliciously sweet girly drinks, complete with tiny paper umbrellas, for without any hint of discrimination or hesitation. The question as to _why_ came in the morning, and even then the regrets of that killer hangover did very little for the next time.

And this was no different.

Mako just never imagined the police officer standing at Sasha’s door could be a _parent_ when the doorbell rang. One of her hands was still clutching at the neck of a bottle of $8 wine when she pulled it open.

In her defense, she was well beyond tipsy and inching towards blackout drunk at that point.

 

The two of them are sitting side by side on tiny plastic stools as they wait.

Hercules Hansen doesn’t doubt he looks utterly ridiculous next to laminated posters of the colour wheel and trays filled to the brim with stray crayons broken into halves. He is in a dirty grey Henley that is probably older than Charlie and he is careful not to get sawdust all over the carpeted area of the classroom.

“The flu’s been through the class already, you’re safe.”

Of course, she notes how careful he is. Just reads it a little differently when she sees how rigid he sits.

“Got it from Chuck at the very start.” He doesn’t want it to be awkward for them. She is his son’s teacher. There is no world in which he can’t be just another parent for her. “But I wasn’t worried about that, Miss Mori.”

He finds his mouth curling at the corners. She has the sleeves of her cardigan pushed up, the pattern of tiny autumn leafs bunching as she works through a tray of markers, tossing the ones that no longer work into the bin.

Charlie is sitting with Raleigh Becket at the other end of the classroom, not so far that either adult cannot see the robot toys being pulled out from their designated boxes or the little noises they made in imitation of explosions as the toys clashed. It has taken very little convincing when the kid asked if he could wait with _Rah_ leigh for his older brother. A glance at the remaining teacher, and just his luck, Miss Mori tells him that Raleigh’s guardian has been held up at work and that he is welcomed to stay.

When Herc grabs a scrap piece of paper from one of the tables to help, she simply turns the tray of markers so it sits between them.

“Thank you for coming to career day, Mr. Hansen.”

 

Mako Mori sobered up at the sight of the cop at the door, not completely, no but she tried. And really, it was all about the effort at this point. She knew that colour blue from all of the other shades even if those eyes were something else too.

But one thing at a time.

The fact that this police officer was just her type had to wait.

“Sorry about the noise,” She tried her hardest to keep her words from slurring together, used the stern face she made with her kids when they were behaving especially bad. “… We’ll keep it down, officer.”

She might have been leaning entirely too heavily against the doorjamb but Sasha’s shout of s _tripper is here!_ from the living room was all the warning Mako got before the bride to be was reaching out from behind her. Her fingers heavy with metal rings that made her engagement ring looked simple in comparison. Mako had a single moment of clarity where that was the only thought that went through her head.

And then Sasha was grabbing a handful of the man’s uniform shirt and yanking him in, finesse nowhere to be found when Mako gets caught between them.

Even in her drunken state, Mako could easily appreciate the body pressed so firmly against hers.

“Hard to find cops wear tear away pants.” Sasha muttered as she dragged them both inside, stopping her before she could refer to the stripper as _officer_ once more. The sound of her door being kicked shut behind them was muffled by how loud they had the music playing.

But even through all that, Mako could hear him letting out a low chuckle that rumbled from his chest, and _oh_ , she could feel that all the way down to her toes.

 

It is downright ridiculous to find himself feeling more nervous here, in her classroom where the desks come up to his knees, than that night in her friend’s apartment where he was in the costume of a version of cops and robber where the cop’s pants came off with a few sway of his hips.

Herc scratched at the back of his neck, looking to where his son sat with the only friend the kid’s managed to make in a class of thirty.

“A contractor’s hardly a career.”

Mako caps the blue marker in her hands and turns to him with a small frown. “I think you forgot the part where you are a contractor working for a non-profit organization that builds affordable housing for veterans.”

“It barely just pays the bills.” He offers in place of an explanation, because he really does love his job. But a job he loves is not his whole world. Charlie is.

He is close to forty, and stripping to pay his son’s steep therapist bills. Charlie has been quiet and closed off since his mum’s death and the only child psychologist that has made any kind of progress with his son does not come cheap. Herc isn’t every cliché yet, just most of them. But he doesn’t mind becoming all of them if just to see the kid smile again.

“…I was really hoping you’ll be out of it long enough for me to finish my, um…”

His accent is not remotely close to how thick he makes it seem when he is leaning close to the girl in his chair any of the nights he performs. How it racks in the bills though he has no idea but Herc has never been one to question anything when it does the trick so damn well.

She ducks her head down but he still sees the way she can’t help but laugh. Something that escapes, soft and easy despite the less than stellar moment they have caught each other in (him with his literal pants on the ground and her with her school teacher respectability out the door). He can still see the way she leaned so heavily against the doorjamb, focusing so hard on getting the words out without slurring.

How proud she was when she succeeded.

It is not just him that she is laughing at, it is herself too when she offers an alternative choice of word.

“… Dance?”

“Yeah,” He bites back a grin, “My _dance_.”

 

The pole installed in the corner of the living room was so ingrained into Mako’s line of vision that she had trouble remembering it at all.

So when Sasha let the stripper go and he took five easy strides to it, Mako was reminded of just how great her front row seat was going to be. Because oh yeah, that was not a cop. Not in any way, shape, or form, especially not with how he’s moving. Mako had never seen anyone danced to Ukrainian Hard House but here he was, buttons going undone one by one.

He had the police cap tipped down, his head angled just so. It could have been the sharp curve of his jaw or the display of those broad shoulders when that uniform shirt came off, dropped unceremoniously at their feet. Mako was hit with a sense of recognition she could not place.

Like she should know him even when she did not.

Because she couldn’t, how could she?

The play-pretend gun holstered to his hip moved as he did to the heavy strum of the music. He wasn’t perfect flawless skin and washboard abs. He was lived in, history and all. He had the kind of bad decision tattoos that were done at eighteen and faints scars that ran long and jagged and faded with time. The scatter of freckles hardly helped when they went all the way down, like the dusting of red hair that disappeared into the waistband of those tear away pants. He had one hand wrapped around the pole, each roll of his hips in time to the thump of the bass.

He moved like there should be someone up there with him, between the spread of his thighs. It was a good show made better when he dropped his utility belt to the ground, plastic gun and baton following in the next beat.

When those tear away pants came off, Mako could only obliged Sasha’s wishes. After all, the woman was shoving dollar bills into her hands and making gestures that were more threatening than encouraging.

She stumbled to stand up but even with the amount of alcohol in her she found that she could very well place that sense of recognition in this moment. Maybe it was the drop of that police cap to the floor, maybe it was the electric glint of blue in those eyes that held her gaze.

That was Chuck’s dad in a thong the pattern of the Australian flag.

 

Of all the things anyone can ever call Hercules Hansen, he knows they cannot call him a bad father.

Herc is not a sensitive man per se. The first time he resorts to calling his brother to watch Charlie for the night, Scott laughs until his throat went hoarse. (Family is family, and Scotty shows up only ten minutes late with a stuffed bulldog toy that Charlie instantly takes a shine to.) Herc is not offended by the reaction that anyone could throw at him for all the things he is willing to do for his son.

He is, however, still a man with something resembling dignity no matter how much easier it is to deal without. He just cannot believe that the first time he sees Miss Mori again after the night she was barely three steps from slipping dollar bills into his G-string, he is showing up in her classroom for Career Day. The irony does not escape him. And right now, sitting next to her with a bin full of dried out markers, he finds that he cares about what she thinks of him.

“I hope your friend’s wedding went well.”

“Maid of honour is nowhere as terrible as the movies make it, Mr. Hansen.”

“You have seen me in nothing but the Aussie flag, the least you can do is call me Herc.”

She blinks, like she doesn’t expect him to come right out and say it. It is hardly crass, just unexpected. She turns to look at him in a way that she hasn’t looked at him before, and the smile is slow to bloom. He is not just another parent.

“Well, I’m nowhere as interesting as you are, Herc.”

But how she tilts her head, that bite in the way her lips turn upwards, Herc has an idea why he cares about what she thinks at all. And it is not just because he is easy for a pretty face like hers.

“I am a preschool teacher by day, getting my master’s degree on early childhood trauma by night.” The smile becomes a grin. “I can’t keep a beat to Ukrainian Hard House.”

She is still looking at him like she did when he showed up at the door with tear away pants on. Only this time, it is without the alcohol.

Hercules lets out a chuckle. “So, that’s what that was.”

They can just make out Yancy Becket pulling into the school’s parking lot from where they sit.

“I find you more than interesting enough, Miss Mori.”

He tells her as she gets up from the plastic stool, her hair looking blue as it catches the setting sun coming through the windows of the classroom. She looks back at him with a glint in her eyes, and there is that same smile that he is beginning to grow very fond of.

“In that case, I think you can call me Mako.”

It’s not quite love at first sight. But he can’t be all the clichés.

 


End file.
